The operation of many mobile devices, including vehicles, is limited by the amount of onboard energy they are able to store. For example, in battery or gasoline powered vehicles, the weight and/or size of the batteries, fuel, or storage units thereof are limiting factors on the effective operating range of the asset. These operating range limitations, as well as costly and time consuming refueling or recharging procedures, can severely limit the performance of these assets.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), for example, can carry critical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) payloads, such as cameras or video recorders, but their flight time is limited by the amount of onboard energy resources. Increasing these resources for long duration flights adds significant weight to the aircraft, thus reducing performance. Moreover, when operating a UAV from ships at sea, the UAV must be landed to be refueled or recharged. This is generally accomplished by catching the UAV in a net, typically resulting in damage to the asset. These landings also disrupt the ship's operations. Likewise UAV's associated with a moving convoy need to depart the convoy and return to a landing field to be refueled. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to allow a UAV to remain airborne without landing to refuel onboard energy sources.
While the above describes typical problems associated with UAVs, other types of assets, including many types of land and sea based vehicles, may not have immediate access to fuel or other energy supplies, and suffer similar reductions in performance as increased energy payloads are added to improve range.
Accordingly, a method of remotely supplying energy to these assets is desired.